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Jonathan Kattouf, HSBC Securities' investment-grade telecom, media and cable sector trader, has left the firm. A trader on HSBC's corporate bond desk confirmed that Kattouf had departed and that no immediate successor had been designated, noting that his responsibilities had been divided up among the remaining traders. Ferdie Masucci, the head of the firm's corporate bond business, was on vacation last Friday and unavailable to comment. Kattouf could not be reached to comment.

James Nimberg, a mortgage backed securities analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston, has accepted a new position as an interest-only/principal-only trader at J.P. Morgan Securities. Kevin Finnerty, the head of MBS at J.P. Morgan, says Nimberg will fill the slot created by the departure of Matt Weinberg, who left several weeks ago for Lehman Brothers (BW, 6/16). "We think he'll be pretty good given his five years of research experience at CSFB," says Finnerty. Nimberg will report to Alan Galishoff and work alongside Jay Fiacco, a more veteran IO/PO trader. J.P. Morgan was the winner of the most improved trading desk award in BondWeek's inaugural MBS survey (BW, 5/21).

Jeff Higgins has been released from J.P. Morgan Securities, where he was a senior high-yield trader, according to traders on the buy-side and at rival firms. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan, Higgins was a high-yield trader at Banc of America Securities and a government bond trader at Merrill Lynch. Scott Dolph, co-head of high-yield trading at J.P. Morgan, declined comment, and Higgins could not be reached.

Syndication of a $210 million bank facility for Kinetic Systems was postponed indefinitely in the wake of turbulent equity markets that have shelved its planned initial public offering. The credit was slated to consist of a $60 million revolver and a $150 million institutional tranche. Proposed pricing could not be ascertained at press time.

Marty Fridson, chief high-yield strategist at Merrill Lynch, has spoken out in defense of short sellers who were the subject of griping attributed to Bill Gross in a recent article published in Barron's. The activity of short sellers in the credit market has occasioned a number of complaints among mutual fund managers, and Fridson's defense drew notice. According to the article, Gross accused hedge funds of driving down bond prices, provoking downgrades and forcing selling from investment-grade money managers. Gross did not return a call seeking comment.

Mike Meyer, who was fired from Merrill Lynch in 1998 after being held responsible for $10-20 million in losses, and who joined Banc of America Securities last week as head of U.S. corporate bond trading, also reportedly caused up to $75 million in losses at UBS Warburg, the firm he left to join B of A.

Dave Rubulotta, has joined Salomon Smith Barney as a v.p. and high-yield salesman.

Standard & Poor's has downgraded Dynegy from BBB- to BB due to concern over the erosion in the company's core merchant energy business. Waning incremental cash flow, hurt by decreased market opportunities and lower power prices, has led to weakened credit protection measures more commonly associated with double-B credits.

TELUS, a Canadian phone corporation, saw its U.S. dollar-denominated 7.5% notes of '07 and 8% notes of '11 drop from 63 to 47 after a ratings downgrade to junk from Moody's Investors Service. One buy-side junk analyst blames the steep drop on forced selling pressure from investment-grade money managers.

Just weeks after securing a new $200 million term loan, TEPPCO Partners has used $90 million in proceeds from an equity offering to reduce the term loan by an equal amount. Charles Leonard, cfo, said the Houston pipeline operator initially needed the larger term loan to close its acquisition of Val Verde Gathering System before the end of June. In addition, TEPPCO needed time to file the appropriate financial statements and meet Securities and Exchange Commission requirements for the equity offering, he explained.

Warnaco has seen a lot of action in the secondary market over the last two weeks with more than $60 million changing hands, according to dealers. The name has been trading flat at the 30-32 level. Traders said better company performance has caused the recent activity in the name. Market sources also said the ultimate recovery value for the bank debt is deemed to be as high as 40.

The corporate primary issuance market has ground to a virtual halt with just $2 billion of investment grade deals coming to market in the last week and $300 million of high yield deals. The month-to-date total volume for July is a mere $14 billion, a level which is less than half the monthly pace of the last two years and demonstrates the degree to which the debt market has shut down. With volume so light it is difficult to discern meaningful trends in the ratings and maturities data, other than to observe that although there is still some diversity in the actual ratings of the deals that are coming to market, the increasing number of deals that are being pulled given lack of investor appetite paints a picture of an extremely dysfunctional market.